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Panorama Photos Show the Decisive Minute

Panorama Photos Show the Decisive Minute

Credit Chuy Benitez

Panoramic Photos Show the Decisive Minute

By Andrew BorygaJan. 8, 2015Jan. 8, 2015

Panoramas make sense to Chuy Benitez, even if they don’t to some editors. He grew up in El Paso, where sprawling murals cover city walls. He’s also devoted to Diego Rivera, whose works set in specific communities layer every available inch to create full scenes. So it’s no mystery why the wide format struck him while he was exploring uncharted aesthetics in art school.

“My aim is to capture an event in a single image, versus doing so in a photo essay,” Mr. Benitez said. It’s a goal both unique and, he said, distancing from publications that rely on photo stories. “My work is almost anti-photo essay.”

It’s anti-panorama too.

For many, the panoramic photo is considered the plaything of tourists with a modern cellphone. The word itself brings to mind standing steps from the mouth of the Grand Canyon. But not for Mr. Benitez.

“I bring the digital panorama closer — right up in the action,” he said. Several of his large prints are on exhibit at the Bronx Documentary Center in “Miradas: Contemporary Mexican Photographers,” which runs until Jan. 12.

Photo

East End, Houston. 2007.Credit Chuy Benitez

Mr. Benitez began experimenting with the format in 2003, tinkering with digital stitching: He would take eight to 10 photographs of a scene in succession and use Photoshop to seamlessly stitch them, rendering the moment instantaneous. “I like to think I’ve expanded the decisive moment into the decisive minute,” he said.

Indeed, one panorama of a mariachi band in a Houston supermarket captures the enthusiasm of the young performers as much as the contempt of employees bagging groceries. Another displays the various (literally) moving parts of a family chrome shop — a hectic visual experience not far from how the moment played out in real time.

“As a human, I think one of your natural impulses is to scan an area,” Mr. Benitez said. “In that way, I think panoramas are actually closer to human vision.”

Deciding on a scene, Mr. Benitez walks around and feels out his space, working out how he will fill the frame and to what extent. “Sometimes the first 180 degrees is just more interesting than the second,” he said. Often, he does not know what the outcome will be until the editing process, which can take up to 10 hours.

Much of his early work focused on the Texas borderlands, where Mr. Benitez’s family “can trace back our roots to when the border crossed us.” Dual nationality crops up in his cherished photos, like one depicting a quinceañera practice held off-hours in a flower shop filled with piñatas. Piñatas are Mexican by tradition, but what is important are the American cartoons emblazoned on them — a symbol, he said, of “the blending of community and culture.”

Mr. Benitez has made forays into single subjects too. One panorama captures the daily entrance and retreat of a young chain-smoker, while others in his collection of Houston work experiment with 360-degree portraits of community leaders in spaces that are important to them.

Lately, he has focused on large public gatherings, like the Obama inauguration and Occupy Wall Street. Only baby steps in his grand plan.

“There is a whole mess of human interactions going on at any given moment in large gatherings,” said Mr. Benitez, who seeks to expand to larger heights such as New Year’s Eve at Times Square or the pilgrimage to Mecca. “I want to capture a topographical view of what’s going on and, like a muralist, build a narrative.”